House Dems watch the GOP 'circus'

With little other choice, House Democrats are sitting back and watching what they see as a Republican implosion.

There isn’t much else they can do. Republicans aren’t reaching out to compromise with their leadership. The GOP is barely even telling them when to show up and vote.

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“It’s like watching theater, or maybe the circus,” Rep. Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told POLITICO. “You’re trying to figure out what act is next. We’re almost forgetting that we’re dealing with a budget bill, so I think it’s hard on the Democratic side to understand why our Republican colleagues would want to take us over the cliff.”

There is no chance a significant number of House Democrats will back the latest Republican proposal, which funds the government through mid-December — but delays Obamacare for a year and repeals the medical device tax. The caucus has strongly opposed any attempt to undermine Obamacare.

Democrats say they’re not pulling for a shutdown. But a total explosion of the Republican conference only puts them in a better place for 2014, when previously they had little hope of trying to recapture the House.

Since they’re being left out of the legislating process — aside from being informed of when to show up to vote – Democrats’ only prominent role is in the messaging fight. In fact, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was celebrating her 50th anniversary outside of Washington, D.C., on Saturday and was set to be absent for the funding vote.

For the most part, Democrats are all on the same page. The caucus will meet at 6 p.m. to discuss the Republican proposal.

Democratic leadership only lost two Democrats the last time Republicans brought a continuing resolution or CR to the floor with a defunding of Obamacare attached. And Democrats are starting to argue the most recent iteration is even worse since it would delay the law for a year, not just defund it in a temporary measure.

“As unreasonable as the ones that have been to date,” Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) described the latest proposal.

Only four Democrats broke ranks and voted with Republicans on the first vote of the day on Saturday, a procedural vote that will eventually allow the GOP to amend the CR to add a one-year delay of Obamacare. Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Jim Costa (Calif.), Mike McIntyre (N.C.) and Krysten Sinema (Ariz.), all of whom offer no insight into how many could ultimately support the Republican proposal.

In the end it was a wash, as four Republicans broke with their party and voted no.

Most Democrats are now declaring a shutdown inevitable.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said he doesn’t see a path at this point to avoiding a shutdown.

“Whenever you have a group that says my way or the highway it becomes very, very difficult to do anything,” Cummings said. “No relationship can move forward when it’s a my way or the highway.”

Cummings said he’s going to pray for the Republicans.

“You just hope that they come to their senses and I think at some point when you’ve got folks who are willing to shut down the government and basically disrupt the United States economy and the world economy because they can’t get what they want, there is something awfully wrong with that picture,” he said.

Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) said there is no doubt the Republican proposal will lead to a shutdown.

“This is not an accident,” Andrews said. “This is an intentional decision that they made. And we’re going to see how the public reacts to it.”

Andrews predicted public backlash.

“Even people who do not support the health care law and want to see it repealed or significantly modified, think that this is a tactic that is reckless, harmful to people and wrong,” he said.

Democrats are happy to point out what they see as dysfunction in the Republican conference.

“It’s obvious that there is chaos in their own caucus,” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) said. “They don’t know what’s going on so we don’t know what’s going on. The sad part is that the American people are going to pay for the dysfunction of the Republican Congress.”

“You can’t compromise with someone who is just intent on shutting government down,” Richmond said.

The logistics of getting Democrats on the floor to vote is its own hurdle. Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting on Saturday afternoon and headed straight to a vote less than 30 minutes later on the rule that will allow them to consider the CR the same day.

Several Democrats could be heard explaining to each other what was going on as they walked on the floor, some with little understanding of what they were voting on.

Becerra said it was humorous that Republicans continue to bash Obamacare as having passed secretly in the middle of the night while they push through their CR in much the same way.

“At the same time, here is a bill that we’ve never even had a chance to look at with just a few hours’ notice and they’re talking about backroom deals,” Becerra said. “It boggles the imagination.”